Meow

 

Ever since there’s a cat in the house
everyone responds to his calls in meows.
Now, if it all were a bit clearer
true communication would be much nearer.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2023)

(The photo shows the source of inspiration of this silly rhyme.)

A rhyming haiku

Take time; this is it – 
flowers will wilt, blossoms will 
drop, and you will sit.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2018)

Note
Thinking about my recent literary productivity (approaching zero), I thought: “Time for another haiku at least!” And this is it.

Oh sweet lord

Dear mom, as you go on to complain,
there's a delicious food on my brain

If I could have that apple crumble
I swear I'd instantly cease to mumble!

Contrary to present dismay,
this would result in a very happy day

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2018)

Note
For the longest time, this was an orphaned draft consisting of these words: "She was drawn to the apple crumble and could not resist. Having eaten it, though, left her" and had the draft title "Diet problems." As you can see, it was drastically rewritten and now ends on a happy note.

The rhymed morning note haiku

Darling, I’m going
very far – I’m on my way
to the coffee bar.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2017)

Note
Completely authentic. Conceived in my head en tour to that said establishment.

The damn it I said haiku

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2016)

Written on Write A Haiku, which counts syllables for you and turns your outpourings into magnetic poetry.

In a jam

When in a jam
when in jam
when jamming

Jabbering away
with a swagger

You get my drift
you aren’t daft

Riverrun dry
riverrun open
riverrun die

Mikey mukey moke
is poetry a joke?

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Notes
What brought this one about? 1. Reading some poetry by an eminent contemporary British poet that did not make the least bit of sense. 2. What's worse: I didn't even feel like trying to read some sense into it or break my poor unpoetic mind doing so. 3. I'd also read the riverrun quote* somewhere today, so it was lurking in the back of my mind.
Have a mukey poetry day!

*From James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1939).

The electric bike ditty

(An electric bike-age homage to Dr. Seuss)

We like our bike, and this is why:
the battery does all the work
when the hills get high.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2014)

The challenge at Poets United was to write a poem with a bicycling motif.

A good poem

Never fight a moon.
Where are the misty seas?
The moon dies like a stormy breeze.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2014)

Note
I must admit that I had some help writing this. The original version came from the Poem Generator. I modified it to make it even greater.
Why is this little poem good?
Because it contains some of the most important key words, images and subjects used in poetry throughout the ages. Such as moon, misty, seas, breeze and death.
Guaranteed to work each and every time!

The filthy poor rhyme

The filthy rich get
rich by making sure
that most others
remain filthy poor.

– Leonard Blumfeld  (© 2013)

Inevitable note
Somehow yesterday's Filthy rich haiku stuck in my mind, demanding more treatment. This resulted in the above poem, which is no longer a haiku by count of syllables & lines. For obvious reasons, I'm calling this filthy poor metric companion to the filthy rich a rhyme.

Portrait of the artist as a working dog

Here I sit,
a working lump,
safely turning into
a cantankerous old grump.

– Leonard "Lumpy" Blumfeld (© 2012)

The loud neighborhood haiku

Joy enjoys the joy
of her own noise, much more than that
of the neighbor boys.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2012)

Posted for Haiku Heights and Joy.

Tepid day, late April

Work and the world are going by –
Rita makes a paper butterfly.


– Leonard "Keen Observer" Blumfeld (© 2011)

Razor edge of time poetic reporting from the workplace.

Yolanda of the baffling glitter

Yolanda had a baffling glitter
around her big blue eyes.
She thought this made her fitter
than one would realize.

Most days she'd concentrate
on elegance of looks
and rather did negate
the importance of science books.

The teachers did not go for glitter,
so in her exams she fared not well.
This made Yolanda very bitter.
She told 'em they should go to hell.

– Felix Morgenstern (© 2012)

Written around baffle, elegant and negate from 3WW.

Mike the Master of Rhymes

“How come you’re so incensed, Alexa?”
“What’s incensed?”
“Mad. Raving mad.”
“I’m trying to write a poem, and nothing rhymes right!” my little sister wailed.
“What have you got so far?”
“Promise you won’t laugh or make fun of me?”
“Would I ever?”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a fork into my eye.”
“All right, here it is.”
She removed her hands from a crumpled piece of paper with numerous pencil scribblings, most of which were crossed out.

“Let me read to you what I’ve got:
(dramatic pause)
    Down the slope she likes to skid
    But her fear she cannot get rid
    of.”
She looked up at me expectantly.
“What do you think?” And in the same breath, “I don’t like that ‘of’ after ‘rid’ – it ruins it all. Do you think I can just do without it?”
“No, it’s required. – Have you got more?”
“Yes, one more. Listen to this:
    Moisture is a kind of damp
    which makes it hard to light a lamp.”
“That one has a perfect rhyme, and it makes sense. Were you going to combine the two in a bigger poem?”
She gnawed on her pencil.
“Yes, that would be nice. Why don’t you help me, Mike. You’re the best rhymer.”
“No, I’m not. What makes you say that? I usually don’t speak in rhymes. In riddles maybe, but not in rhymes.”
“Yes, you do. You’re a, you’re a – I’ve got it – a master rhymer.”
I scratched my head for show.
“How about this then:
    Once of her fears she had gotten rid
    she went down the slope in a great skid.
    However, it had rained a lot that day,
    which is why she slipped on clay.
    Her fancy pants got very damp,
    But her brother said, You’re still my champ.”

“Oh, that’s really neat, Mike! Let me copy that one down on a new piece of paper.”
“Who’s this poem for, anyway?”
“Why, it’s for your birthday!”
I had to laugh.
“And who told you which words to rhyme?”
“Oh, that was off the Internet. Something called Three Word Tuesday or Wednesday, I forget which. I only used two words, though. The third one I didn’t know. It was the one you used before. You know, that word for raving mad.”

– Leonard “Given to Silliness” Blumfeld (© 2011)

Silly and contrived, I know, but it uses all three words from 3WW (damp, incensed, skid).

The intense immense ditty

Some people like it all intense –
I must admit I find that too immense.

Feelings looming like a tower
can do a lot to overpower.

How about some relaxation –
with plenty of room for imagination.

A steady love is what I crave –
steady, quiet, not one to enslave.

None of these spells and bouts I get from you,
and most of them come without a clue.

Some people like it all intense –
to me that shows a lack of common sense.

– Leonard “Calmly But Surely Intense” Blumfeld (© 2010)

Rhymed and timed for Sunday Scribblings and Immense.

Love constellation

“Meanness is no recipe for love,”
he said and headed for the door.

“Knowing you, my dear,” she said,
“you will be back for more.”

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2010)

Written for ‘recipe’ at Sunday Scribblings.

Note
Some relationships I have occasion to observe simply appear to be doomed from whatever angle you look at them. A recipe that would save them does not seem to exist. And yet they go on and on and on...

The ballad of Art the Fart

When he was little
and in his pants did piddle,

Arthur the Fart,
as he was known,

could not quite tell
a dog from a bone.

In later years,
however,

he became
increasingly clever.

In rooms intended
for perambulation

he’d place what’s called
an installation:

cut-up and dried scats,
degenerated rats,

his grandpas’s shaver
and things even graver,

his and his lover’s
used underwear,

assorted bunches
of pubic and other hair,

plastic bottles emptied
of their content,

in short:
everything that lent

itself to presentation
became an installation.

Art-hungry hordes arrived,
illuminate critics applauded –

Art’s installations
were highly lauded.

Except one nasty soul
from way back when,

who used to play with the
installator in the pen

and then became
an unknown artist,

but counted himself
among the smartest,

to end the farce
swore that he would

make it go up in smoke,
and sure he could.

Henceforth, Art’s
every installation

turned into a pyre
for illustration.

Unperturbed in
his career,

Art said
that all was here

and now,
accepting fire

with a
bow:

Whoever
has a heart for art,

please bear with me –
Art the Fart.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Posted for Sunday Scribblings' Art.

The unlucky 26

Discovered today,
the first of May:

Rhymed ballads
of personal doom

filled with hilarious
detail of gloom.

Go visit PJD's The Unlucky Twenty-Six.

Oh such flowering

Oh such flowering in April and May!
I wish I could enjoy birch, nettle and bay.

Alas: grasses, bushes and trees, even bamboo
give me but watery eyes and endless achoo...

– Leonard Blumfeld (c) allergy season 2008

Written specifically for flowering at One Single Impression.

Overheard at breakfast

Said the egg to the spoon:
I’ll promise you the moon.

Even though I’ve been decapitated
I’m not entirely captivated –

I simply hate to confess
that my shell’s in a mess

while your condition is mint.
But I’ll drop you a hint:

Sugar would be very nice
instead of salt as a spice.

Taking me to a mouth
is the deed of a louth.

Our love could be torrid
if you weren’t so horrid.

– Leonard “Silly Mood” Blumfeld

Written because of the word 'torrid' at Writers Island.